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| Redbird SD1000 AATD |
Today I was going to get checked out in the C172 w/G1000
that is down at Rainier Flight in Renton, WA.
I’m not a huge fan of the C172, however it is easily one of the nicest
aircraft around and I know that since it is nice my wife “might” actually come
fly in it with me. Ever since we sold
the Cirrus, both my wife and I have gotten pretty spoiled in what is out there
to fly. This is the closest thing that I
can find that kind of fits the bill, so I booked the plane three weeks ago
(earliest I could get in it), so that I might be able to get her up in it
someday. Unfortunately the weather was
typical crap for this time of year with 500’ OC and mist. Great day for flying IMC, but unfortunately KRNT
doesn’t have any approaches low enough to get back in to (800’ for non WAAS,
and 600’ w/WAAS). Since the weather was
solid IMC, it wasn’t a great day for doing a check ride either. So instead, I asked Jack if we could do some
instrument work in the Simulator instead and he said no problem.
The simulator at Rainier Flight is an Advanced Aviation
Training Device (AATD), Redbird SD1000.
This is a non-motion unit that has a reconfigurable cockpit and for our
purposes my instructor set it up for the G1000 C172. My goal here was three-fold. One, I really wanted to try out the Redbird
and see how well it worked. Two, I
wanted to reacquaint myself to the G1000, since I hadn’t flown one in about
four years, and three, I wanted to get
some IFR practice in and make use of the time.
Since this simulator is a certified AATD and my instructor is a CFII,
the time spent in the simulator is log-able for IFR training. Excellent!
Since this was the first time using this simulator, I wanted
to experiment a bit, so I took off from KRNT and flew to KPAE. Yes, you could “magic move” the plane, but I
wanted to see how it felt and get a good feel for the simulator. I have heard many people complain about the
simulator being too sensitive and unrealistic, and I found that it wasn’t bad
at all. It may be a bit sensitive, but
nothing outrageous and the system as a whole worked pretty well. I will say there are some quirks with the programming
of the G1000 that are not correct and the knobs are too sensitive with minimal
feel, but if you take your time and pay attention it works fine for the most
part. Some functions like bringing up a “direct
to” function, does not auto-populate with “K”, which isn’t very realistic, but
overall the functions were pretty good.
The KAP 150 autopilot also doesn’t like to hold its altitude, and if you
don’t stop the vertical speed rate at “0”, it will blow through the assigned or
set altitude. That was more annoying
than anything and it actually hand flies pretty well when you use the trim
wheel.
We started off with a published hold at EYWOK for the ILS Y
RWY 16R into Paine Field, then shot the ILS.
I screwed up the missed (failed to brief and UNDERSTAND) the procedure,
but then unscrewed myself and went back into the hold again. The second time I shot the approach, I hoped
to better fly the missed procedure, but screwed it up a little the second time
too (I was a little rusty ;-) ), but salvaged it. The third approach was an RNAV (GPS) Y RWY
16R. This approach went fine no issues
and we started to wrap it up since we thought there was someone waiting on the
sim. I landed the sim and Jack check the
schedule and the sim was not booked after all.
Since the sim was open, Jack asked me again about my
currency and said that if I had the time, we could do some partial panel work
and unusual attitude discuss and he would write me off for an Instrument
Proficiency Check (IPC). AWESOME! I wasn’t planning on this, but it works for
me, so I took off again and this time shot the RNAV (GPS) RWY 34L. Since Jack killed my PFD, I was working
crossways off the MFD with other issues and proceeded to shoot the approach. We had some good discussion about scenarios,
whether or not to declare an emergency and other topics and in the process, I
noticed the approach didn’t sequence to the next waypoint (RARYO to
USDAW). Not a huge deal, I thought maybe
in my talking I forgot to activate the approach. I went in and activated the approach and the
system reset the approach and expected me to go back to RARYO (IAF). WRONG.
At this point, I declared missed, and came back around for another try. One option Jack told me was that I could have
just punched in vectors to final, and it would have populated the entire
approach. Good idea, just didn’t think
of it. Second time around, I flew the
approach with no issues.
Once we finished we had some discussions about unusual
attitudes and the IPC was complete. I
wasn’t aware that you could even do it in a simulator, but according to FAA
regulation you can. Obviously as a
simulations guy, I had a blast since I love the idea of training in the
sim. You have the ability to do so much
that you are really only limited by your imagination as to what you can
do. Next step for me is to get up and
fly. Although my skills are still ok, I
definitely need to spend a little time doing some VOR work. At least now I can fly again in IMC, I just
have to find a plane that I’m comfortable in before I go fly it in actual IMC. Good stuff and I will definitely spend some
more time in the sim in the future!
